Papps' stats from last season massively flatter him. His double hundred was scored against declaration bowling.

A poor leave and plonking your foot across rather than forward isn't ideal, but having no back foot defense or attack is even worse.

Neesham is a good young allrounder but he's still a work in progress in the whites I think.

Last edited by Flem274*; 28-05-2013 at 03:03 AM.

Originally Posted by Athlai

Jeets doesn't really deserve to be bowling.

Originally Posted by Athlai

Well yeah Tendy is probably better than Bradman, but Bradman was 70 years ago, if he grew up in the modern era he'd still easily be the best. Though he wasn't, can understand the argument for Tendy even though I don't agree.

I'm almost happy Guptill and Fulton failed on this tour - both have now got averages below 30 which seems about right to me. I've always thought the threshold for decent NZ batsmen was 30, sad as that will look to supporters of other nations. Edgar, Burgess, Dowling, Howarth, Hastings all only just managed to end the right side of 30, for instance. (I'm still unsure how I feel about Bryan Young....)

Yeah, but Edgar et al played in an era when averages over 40 were world-class (due to worse pitches for batting, bats, running between wickets, lack of bang & zim etc), while the mark today is 50. A batting ave of 30 now is like an av of 20-25 then

I'm a fan of Neesham, Andersen and Latham and think any of them are far better shots than Ronchi if we're just going by by runscoring ability.

That said I would have Ronchi in the team because I think he'd be a good keeper batsman. But at the moment Watling has that down so the best Ronchi would be is backup keeper, and it's not many series when the selectors choose a pure keeper as backup these days. And I agree with them, when you've got McCullum and Latham who can both keep, you're better off taking another bowler.

Papps' stats from last season massively flatter him. His double hundred was scored against declaration bowling.

A poor leave and plonking your foot across rather than forward isn't ideal, but having no back foot defense or attack is even worse.

Yeah tbf he hangs back these days, with a back-foot cut and pull shot. The forward shuffle Papps was an infinitely more prolific FC opener than Siddons' 'power Papps', so he's trading on our memory of this. His reading of a length still seems really poor, and he'd get spliced and nicked out by international pace so often it'd be a joke.

Don't squander the gold of your days making a shrine of cricket videos, trying to improve the hopeless failure, giving your life away to the Blockys, the Devciches and the Weerasundaras! Surrender your devout little cricketing heart to the inured agribusinessman.

One positive outcome may emerge from the batting rubble of the England test series: New Zealand Cricket appears set to send players to the sub-continent more regularly to help them combat spin.

A New Zealand 'A' tour of India - read a hybrid of New Zealand first XI batsmen and second XI bowlers - is being planned before the test team tours Bangladesh in October.

A core part of the strategy would enable players with no sub-continental test caps to get further experience to avoid being further exposed in tests. Peter Fulton, Hamish Rutherford, Dean Brownlie and B-J Watling are obvious targets, given coach Mike Hesson and captain Brendon McCullum have hinted their intention is to persevere with the incumbent batsmen, despite the raw aftermath of Lord's and Leeds.

With so much of the cricket calendar based in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, such a strategy must be worth the investment. New Zealand could even subsequently benefit on surfaces like Headingley which turned enough for Graeme Swann to take test best figures of 10 for 132.

He had clear targets created by the Neil Wagner and Trent Boult footmarks, but, if the New Zealanders want to be considered genuine test batsmen, they need to play with more surety and resolve.

Half century 10th wicket partnerships might become a bonus rather than a necessity.

There is no suggestion as yet that the 'A' tour will involve the players immersing themselves more in the lifestyle. A more in-depth answer might lie in encouraging young New Zealanders to go to India and Sri Lanka on cricket working holidays.

The trip, starting on August 24, includes one, three and four-day games against India A in Vizakhapatnam, then a series of games in Sri Lanka. The squad is due back in early October before the Plunket Shield starts.The squad will have a week in Maroochydore in Queensland, Australia, in July, and again in August as part of the preparation.It is the first part in a three-year rolling plan - much of which will be based in the sub-continent, in a nod to the way New Zealand's international future is unfolding, and helped to be made possible by a grant from the International Cricket Council for that specific aim of helping bridge the gulf to test cricket.

The squad is due to be named in about three weeks.

There is also the prospect, to be finalised, of a match or two against the West Indies and India when they tour New Zealand next summer.

New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum is trying to pinpoint why his team cannot translate limited overs success to the test arena.

It follows the opening five-wicket victory over England at Lord's where, apart from the panic of losing two wickets in the opening over, they controlled the chase through middle-order partnerships to get home with 19 balls to spare.

After filtering through the statistical and observational data of the past couple of weeks, McCullum believes the answer comes from how the sport is differentiated.

His hypothesis (and it remains a work-in-progress) indicates New Zealand batsmen feel more comfortable or insulated being subject to restrictions or parameters on how they play the game. Those might include fielding restrictions for power plays and a cap of 10 overs per bowler. Limited overs therefore becomes manageable; unlimited overs remains a step too far.

"It's important for us to separate the different formats. We've got an experienced one-day unit which meant at one for two, Martin [Guptill] and Ross [Taylor] assessed the situation and counter-punched well. Grant [Elliott] was efficient in getting a partnership going with Martin as was James [Franklin] towards the end.

"It swung the ascendancy our way. It was nice to see the guys knock the total off and important to recognise the bowlers because I thought 260 [rather than England's 227] was a par score.

"Limited overs forces us into a certain pace we need to play at. That's something we saw today. Guys assessed the situation and played accordingly. Sometimes in tests we're still learning to address the situation and work out a successful plan."

The situation where the team fluctuates between commanding victories and excruciating defeats is a regular phenomenon. When they are focused on survival or redeeming their reputation, rather than naked winning, they perform better.

A pattern has emerged since November's Sri Lanka tour. New Zealand lost the first test. Then, when the execution of basic skills was called for to avoid a sixth consecutive defeat, Ross Taylor produced his Colombo batting heroics to win the second test.

In South Africa, they capitulated in the tests and came back to win the one-dayers. Against England they lost the opening T20 match, won the second when hopes were reduced and lost the third by 10 wickets. Similarly, the one-dayers were shared before England won the decider.

Even in the home tests against England they dominated the first, survived the second and came within a wicket of victory in the third. In this series they're fighting back after test trouncings.

The Herald on Sunday spoke to Gary Hermansson, professor of sports psychology at Massey University and someone who has worked with the team in the past, when this theme first emerged in February. He said it works like a mathematical equation: Winning team + high expectations + pressure = poor performance.

He cited the 2011 Australian test series: "Ahead of the first test in Brisbane, New Zealand's chances were talked up. They lost heavily [by nine wickets]. Then the focus turned to the need to just perform and be credible in the second test at Hobart. They won by seven runs.

"Too much emphasis on winning results in choking, rather than applying the methods and techniques they would normally put in place to perform. Skill levels go out the window.

"The public reaction can then be quite savage and the team goes into its shell and produces a better performance as underdogs by focusing on the quality of their game. It's a rollercoaster. We saw a similar pattern with the All Blacks in World Cup years up until 2011."

As a result, the odds are definitely in England's favour ahead of today's second one-dayer near Southampton. They may need more heroics from Guptill - who scored the first one-day international century by a New Zealander at Lord's to give the visitors their five-wicket win. The Marylebone Cricket Club remains a venue New Zealand has never lost in three completed 50-over matches.

It was Guptill's third one-day century in 70 matches. His first came on debut against the West Indies in January 2009 and his second against Zimbabwe in Harare in October 2011. He escaped an lbw review from the bowling of Tim Bresnan on 99 in the 47th over - and could have been denied his century by four byes.

That drew the scores level on 227 - but the ball went perilously close to hitting a spare helmet on the field, which would have yielded five runs under the rules of the game and would have left him stranded. Guptill defended a delivery before pulling the next to the boundary and finishing 103 not out.

It was a mark of the recovery work undertaken by Guptill, along with Ross Taylor in a second-wicket partnership of 120, that the pair dug in and pulled off a survival job - which turned into a demonstration of batting leadership - beyond anything anyone had produced recently in white clothes. The successful chase was higher than anything New Zealand had produced in the tests with a best of 220 at Leeds.

Guptill was stronger than usual square of the wicket rather than his customary straight drives; Taylor was brutal through cover on his way to 54.

Southee was the best of the New Zealand bowlers with three for 37, continuing the form of his 10-wicket haul in the test match at the same ground. His opening spell of five overs, two for 12, including two wicket maidens, was the best of the innings.

Meanwhile, the flurry of wickets in their middle order stalled the innings on a useful batting pitch. Mitchell McClenaghan, Southee and Nathan McCullum prevented England from scoring a boundary from overs 28 through to 34.

Luke Ronchi began his international debut for New Zealand with an energetic wicketkeeping display which suggests he has a promising future, despite his 32 years.

With Brendon McCullum assuming the leadership and becoming increasingly fragile behind the stumps, Ronchi's two catches to dismiss openers Ian Bell and Alastair Cook were executed with dives performed with ease.

I think that's a fairly accurate observation from McCullum. It isn't the whole story, but part of it.